Saturday, May 2, 2015

It is often asked, “How can a biblical scholar who is a Christian believe in The Bible as the inerrant and/or revealed word of God? The inside flap of the dust cover of Misquoting Jesus
provides a partial answer. It reads in part, “When world-class
biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible
in their original languages he was startled to discover the multitude
of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier
translators. In Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman tells the story behind
the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament
and shows the great impact it had on the Bible* we use today. . . [His
studies] made him abandon his once ultraconservative views of the
Bible.” [One writer said that the living God must be a very poor
communicator to have allowed such variations in his written message to
mankind.]

The
dust cover flap then continues, “Ehrman makes the provocative case that
many of our cherished biblical stories and widely held beliefs
concerning the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, and the divine origins of
the Bible itself stem from both intentional and accidental alterations
by scribes – alterations that dramatically affect all subsequent
versions of the Bible.”

On
page 46, Ehrman explains one of the many problems that have occurred
over and over throughout the early years of biblical literature. He
writes: “One of the problems with ancient Greek texts . . . is that when
they were copied, no marks of punctuation were used, no distinction
made between lowercase and uppercase‡ letters, and, even more bizarre to
modern readers, no spaces used to separate words. This kind of
continuous writing is called scriptuo continua, and it obviously could
make it difficult at times to read, let alone understand, a text. The
word godisnowhere could mean quite different things to a theist (God is
now here) and an atheist (God is nowhere) . . .”

Continuing
on page 48, Ehrman writes: [scribes] “could not distinguish between the
syllables. [Being as most scribes] could not read the text fluently but
could only recognize the letters, and so copied them one at a time.
Obviously, if you don’t know what you’re reading, the possibility of
making mistakes in transcription multiply.”

On
Page 88 Ehrman tells of the search made by John Mill who was an English
theologian. He is noted for his critical edition of the Greek New
Testament which included notes on the many variant readings. (This John
Mill is not to be confused with John Stuart Mill – the great
Utilitarian.) This earlier John Mill spent 30 years accumulating
materials for his text that was published in 1707. During that time, he
isolated some 30,000 places where different manuscript citations and
versions had different readings for passages . . . Mill was not
exhaustive in his presentation of the data he had collected. He had, in
fact, found far more than 30,000 places of variation. He did not cite
everything he discovered, leaving out variations such as those involving
changes of word order . . . Whereas Mill knew of or examined some 100
Greek manuscripts to uncover his 30,000 variations, today [2005] we know
of far, far more. At last count, more than 5,700 Greek manuscripts
have been discovered and catalogued. . . . These include everything
from the smallest fragments of the size of a credit card to very large
and magnificent productions, preserved in their entirety. . . These
manuscripts range in date from the early [2nd down to the 16th century].
Some of these manuscripts are inexpensive, hastily produced copies;
some were actually copied onto reused pages (a document was erased and
the text . . . was written over the top of the erased pages); others are
enormously lavish and expensive copies, including some written on
purple-dyed parchment with silver or gold ink.”

On
page 89, Ehrman adds: “Scholars differ significantly in their estimates
[of the number of variants known]. [S]ome say there are 200,000
variants, some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more! We do not know
for sure because, despite impressive developments in computer
technology, no one has yet been able to count them all. Perhaps . . .
it is best simply to leave the matter in comparative terms. There are
more variations among manuscripts than there are words in the New
Testament.”

- - - - -

*
In modern American-English prose writing about “the Bible,” the word
“the” should not only have an uppercase “t” but also be in italics.
Also, the word “Bible” should be italicized. Thus the name of this
particular book should appear in print as: The Bible.

‡
The terms “upper case” and “lower case” come from the suitcase-like
boxes with shallow drawers called type-cases that held the “type” type
for the movable-type printing presses. The “capital” letters were in
the upper part of the case. The lower part of the case held the
“smaller” type. We still use the word “type” today, as in
“typographical” errors. That term should perhaps be changed to

Saturday, February 28, 2015

The inside flap of the dust cover of the book titled The Mythmaker,
begins with this question: “Who was the founder of Christianity? The
answer seems obvious – Jesus. . .” The author, a Talmudic scholar,
shows clearly that this is not true. The information on that flap
continues: “. . . Jesus’ disciples never had any thought of founding a
new [religion]; they never embraced such ideas as Jesus’ divinity and
the Eucharist, which were the brainchildren of Paul; and the heretical
Ebionite* sect was really a continuation of ‘Jewish Christianity’
against which Paul had rebelled.”

For
clarity, this “Paul” was Saul of Tarsus who has become known as the
“Apostle Paul.” Also, for clarity, there is no evidence in The Bible that Paul had contact with Jesus except through Paul’s own alleged revelations that he said came directly for the risen Jesus.

It
may seem nonsensical to Christians that the founder of Christianity was
not the Jesus of Nazareth or any of his apostles – including James –
his biological brother – or Peter, but Paul. At first, Paul defied James
and Peter and claimed revelations from Paul's new deity as a basis of
the doctrines of his (Paul’s) new religion which has come down to
present day societies as the Christian religion.

On
page 139, this is found: “[The book of Acts – particularly Chapter 15]
was written to minimize the conflict between Paul and the leaders of the
‘Jerusalem Church’ – James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later
Christian traditions, became twin saints – brothers in the faith. . . The
idea that they were historically bitter opponents standing for
irreconcilable religious [differences] would have been repudiated with
horror. The work of the author of Acts was done well. [H]e rescued
Christianity from the imputation of being the individual creation of
Paul . . . [He] gave it a respectable pedigree, as a doctrine with the
authority of the so-called ‘Jerusalem Church’ . . . Yet, for all his
efforts, the truth of the matter is not hard to recover. If we examine
the New Testament evidence with an eye to tell-tale inconsistencies and
confusions, rather than with the determination to gloss over and
harmonize all difficulties, . . .” the truth of the conflict becomes
evident.

Page
145 continues with, “Paul did not accept, either in his private
thoughts or in his teaching . . . that he was under the authority of the
Jerusalem Community led by James [the brother of Jesus]. On the
contrary, he regarded his own authority as higher than theirs, since his
doctrines came – as he declared – direct from the risen Christ, while
theirs came only from the earthly Jesus. Yet he came meekly to Jerusalem
when summoned and submitted himself to the decision of James for he did
not consider the time ripe for a complete break with Jewish
Christianity.” In other words, Paul wasn’t honest enough to tell the
followers that Jesus had selected that he [Paul] was going to “do his
own thing.”

Because
it is in the Book of Acts that we find Saul’s conversion making him the
“Founder of Christianity” – not Jesus of Nazareth, the author of The
Mythmaker, Hyam Maccoby, on page 88, gives a problematic view of the New
Testament. Maccoby states that there are three accounts of [Paul’s
conversion] in Chapters 9, 22 and 26 with some curious inconsistencies.
Also there are four other accounts in the first chapter of Galatians
written by Paul himself. These raise problems also.

— Russell Pizer

- - - - -

*
The Ebionites regarded Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah while rejecting
his divinity and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and
rites. They revered James the Just and rejected Paul (Saul of Tarsus).
Ebionim was one of the terms used by the sect at Qumran that sought to
separate themselves from the corruption of the Temple, whom many
believed were the Essenes.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

I found this article to be moving in a couple of ways. First, just the fact that an evangelical church has pivoted to a position of acceptance of same-sex marriage. The second was in reading the thought process that led up to this decision, grounded in scripture, if you can believe it. Even though we don't share the same views on religious issues, maybe there really is a way we can work it out so that we achieve the same end. It's not the belief, it's the action that counts in the end.

Conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks has recently strayed into the minefield of philosophy. This column is worth reading not necessarily for what he says but rather for the comments, many of which rebut Brooks' argument in thoughtful responses which contain nuggets of wisdom that HSGP members could use to further refine their own thoughts about secularism. (Sorry for the bad pun but I couldn't resist.)

Monday, February 2, 2015

Christians
like to assert that Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, et al., founded these
United States of American on Christian principles and especially the Ten
Commandments. However, those who assert such appear to discount one of
Thomas Jefferson’s activities regarding The Bible.

On
3/16/2011, this headline appeared in the Hoffington Post: “Will the
Jefferson Bible Spark New Smithsonian Controversy?” The article read,
in part: “The Smithsonian recently began the painstaking restoration of
one of America’s great hidden treasures: what is called the “Jefferson
Bible.” Composed through a process of rigorous editing, Thomas Jefferson
assembled a spare, concise book that was devoid of supernatural events
from six different biblical texts. Even the crowning moment of the
Christian story, the Resurrection, is completely deleted from
Jefferson’s version. . . .

“[Religious]
pundits . . . would have you believe that the Founding Fathers were
devout believers who saw America as a Christian nation. They point to
the phrase in the Declaration of Independence,* noting that natural
rights are ‘endowed by a Creator’‡ . . .

“[T]he
Founding Fathers shared little consensus on religion. Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Paine were explicit deists. Franklin’s writings
revealed ‘some doubts as to [Jesus’s] divinity' . . .” [Presidents
Jefferson and Madison were charged with being atheists.] “Madison, the
author of the Constitution and no friend to organized religion, composed
a ‘Detached Memoranda’ to the Constitutional Conventions decrying
religious influence as injurious to public life. . .”

Concerning
the “Ten Commandments,” Jefferson selected only six for his version of
The Bible. He included these: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not
commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false
witness, Honour thy father and thy mother; and Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. These are the same six that Jesus gave in Matthew
19:17-19. Historically, it should be noted that in 787 the 7th
Ecumenical Council nullified the 2nd commandment. This was done so the
Roman Catholic Church could have its statues, paintings, icons and
images of God, the Holy Family and all the saints.

People
who are not familiar with this effort by Jefferson will probably be
mortified to learn that one of our Founding Fathers mutilated the Bible.
Jefferson literally took scissors and cut out the portions he liked
and glued them together – making him perhaps the first great American
Cafeteria Christian.

NOTE: The Jefferson Bible can be downloaded for free from the internet. An 8½- by 11-inch version contains 33 pages.

- - - - - - - - - -

*
Contrary to popular belief, there is no such document in U.S. history
that is titled “The Declaration of Independence.” The heading on the
first broadside as printed by John Dunlap is: “A Declaration by the
Representatives of the United States of American in General Congress
Assembled.” The embossed official document – the hand-written version
by Timothy Matlack – has the title: “The unanimous Declaration of the
united States of America.” Notice it is not the United States of
America – with an upper case “U”. And, history shows that it was not
“unanimous.”

‡
When Thomas Jefferson submitted the hand-written version of the
so-called “Declaration of Independence” to the printer – John Dunlap –
the word “creator” appeared with a lower case letter “c.” There seems
to be no historical record as to who changed the word “creator” to
“Creator.” It was probably some unknown typesetter in the Dunlop
printing office on the night of July 4, 1776. Also note, the phrase is
“endowed by their creator,” not, “endowed by the Creator.”